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GIFT 



OITR HOSPITALS 



A N D 



THE SANITARY COMMISSION 



Published by order of the General Aid Society for the Army. 



In the May number of a religious magazine edited in Boston, is an 
interesting article by the Rev. F. W. W^are, entitled, " Our Hospitals and 
the Men in Them." It contains one of those coi'dial testimonials to the 
Sanitary Commission that every friend of that charity will take pleasure in 
reading, and esteem it a privilege to circulate. Mr. Ware says : — 

"I had not dreamed of the vastness and perfectness of organization and 
detail of that body of which we have all heard so much and so many have 
doubted — the Sanitary Commission. As the grain and mustard-seed ex- 
pands from the smallest among seeds to be the greatest of trees, so has this 
small thought in one brain expanded into the vastest beneficence for the 
sheltering of all ills. Timc^ would fail one to speak of it even as I saw it. 
The sirapHcity and quiet with wliich a vast amount of comphcated work is 
done; the patience with whicli every case is heard; the vvisdoin with which 
remedies are applied ; the system which stoops to detail and grasps great 
thoughts and develops vast plans; the firmness v.ith wbich a desired reform 
is pushed ; the courtesy and the gentlemanly hospitality of those at the 



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OUR HOSPITALS, AND THE SANJTAKV COMMISSION. 



head([uarter8 — nil impress you with a sense of the solid woi'th of the insti- 
tution, and tlu' real good it does. My friend took me to and through the 
storehouses. Tliese are a series of large, brick government staldes, which, 
being possessed of in part temporarily, the Commission have proceeded to 
occupy wholly, and to hold, though wanted l)y government for their 
original purpose. They are capitally adapted to their wants. There are 
immense piles of boxes of assorted goods, all labelled, so that almost in the 
dark, at an instant's notice, whatever is demanded can be had. Every 
night a list is made of the number of articles remaining in store, and it is 
curious to compare one day with another and «ee the fluctuations of de- 
mand and su[>}>ly — to see how this great storehouse of a nation's liberality, 
which some men think well nigh bursting with jilethora, is sometimes re- 
duced to a barrenness that would be ludicrous ( if it were not embarrassing) 
in one's own domestic arrangements. You cannot make a plethora, and 
so long as the war lasts this must be the great reservoir — only to be fed by 
constant running in of the little driblets from individuals, neighborhoods 
and families. The Commission has now the confidence of government, 
which it has fairly earned. It has had a hard fight against the prejudice 
of military caste ; it is thwarted still, but it ])ushes on, and is not merely 
makino- a success, but working a conviction in the minds of men ever 
immovable, except under the imperative logic of facts accomplished. The 
Suro-eon-General, whom it elevated in power, rewards it by a constant re- 
si:)ect, and increase of its prerogative. A few days before I was in Wash- 
inoton, a prominent army oflficer, accompanied by a friend of the navy, 
called at the rooms of the Commission, and said 'I wish, in this presence, 
to retract my opposition, and to take back what I have said. I thought 
your schemes a humbug, and you a set of impracticable philanthropists, 
but I am confident that in my command alone you sa\ed five hundred 
lives.' Atler the battle of Antietam the Surgeon General made a request 
for stores. 'IIow will you send them?' ,'By our wagons' was the 
reply. The General doubted, sent government supj^lies by lail, and the 



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OUR HOSPITALS, AND THE SANITARY COMMISSx^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 743 631 



"Commission wagons cam(? into Frederick, forty-eight hours in advance. It 
''^is impossible, in face of sucli facts, to over estimate the value of sucli a 
body, and our duty toward it. I came liome satisfied that in no way can 
so much be done for the wants of the army, as by continuing to supj^ly 
the Sanitary Commission with such things as they ask. Except in sore 
cases, all other charity is useless, falls short of its purpose, and is wasted. 

" I do not doubt the sincerity of young men's societies. Christian Com- 
missions, State relief societies, and all such. I do not doubt as things are that 
there is work enough for all, and that the hearty work of all can remove 
scarce a tithe of the want and suffering Avhich must increase as we go; but I 
do regret the springing up of these separate organizations, distracting j^eople's 
minds, diverting their charities, and preventing the ])erfect success of one 
grand central agency, already long in the field, with vast and trained 
ability and resources, with knowledge and means only acquired by experi- 
ence. It is scattering to here we need concentration. 

"A dozen of these newer agencies at their best, cannot do what this great 
power might easily through hearty and united co-operation. The Com- 
mission is national, not sectarian or sectional. Its charity is not suggested, 
swayed, or hmited by State or denominational lines, and I repeat the words 
of a wounded officer, who said to me, 'you can't say too much of it, or 
do too much for it. It is only those who have seen it as I have, who really 
know its work ami Avorth.' ^ ^ * j .^^^^-^ ^jp thus: The 

hosijitals are not yet perfect, but honest men are trying to make them so. 
The Sanitary Commission is worthy your confidence. It furnishes the 
only sure medium of your charity. It can only live and do as you furnish 
it the means. It is straitened to-day because our charity is divided. There 
is as much need of our charity and liberality as ever. Let it not be that 
because of sectarian or sectional doubts or jealousies a noble institution, 
nobly founded, and thus far nobly sustained, shall be ciippled in its means 
of usefulness, or add another to the long and dark catalogue of good things 
sacrificed to the petty oi' pettish spirit of bigotry or captiousness. Let us 



OUn HOSPITALS, AND THE SANITARY COMMISSION. 



work licnitilv, let us o'ive freeh' ; Avork anfl give in faith and hope and 
unity, that when at hist this war is over, and its liistory conies to be writ- 
ten, brigliter than all the valiant deeds that may be blazoned on its pages 
shall be the chronicle of its charities^ linking in one the loyalty of the East 
and the loyalty of the West — charities that shall show the \\-oi-ld the power 
of Home through her dear love to mitigate, if she cannot prevent the suf- 
ferings of the cam]) and the hospital.'" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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HoUinger 

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Mill Run F3.1955 



